1. Field Of The Invention
This invention relates to fishing lure holders, and more particularly, to fishing lure holders which are spring actuated for automatically clamping the hooks of fishing lures.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
Holding apparatus for fishing lures which provides separation of the lures, maintains ready access, as well as minimizes the possibility of injury caused by the hooks thereof, has long been desirable. Some fishing lure holders which have been developed utilize biasing means to clamp the hook of the lure in place. One such device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,081,817 to Johnson in which hooks are held in place by fitting in grooves between longitudinally positioned latching members and clamped therein by spring action. This device has more parts and is considerably more complicated than the apparatus of the present invention.
Fish hook holders having individual spring elements for each hook held thereby are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,629,965 to Chew and 2,691,843 to Clayton. Again, these devices are more complicated than the apparatus of the present invention which utilizes a single spring member for clamping all of the hooks held at one time.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,543,120 to Raber et al. discloses a sliding plate having a plurality of elongated slots therein positioned between a pair of stationary plates having similar slots. The sliding plate is spring biased in a transverse direction. When the springs are deflected, the slots in all three plates are aligned so that a hook may be placed therethrough. When the spring is released, the sliding plate moves transversely so that the slot opening is reduced, and the sliding plate clamps the hooks against the stationary plates. One disadvantage to such apparatus is that the sliding plate must be depressed by one hand before a hook may be installed with another hand. There is no way to simply snap the hook in place with one hand, as with the present invention.
A fishing lure holder without spring biasing is shown in U.S. Pat. No. Des. 238,873 to West, in which a stationary member has a plurality of substantially U-shaped slots with a movable member having a plurality of substantially L-shaped slots alignable with the slots in the stationary member. A linkage is used to move the movable member from a position in which a hook may be positioned through aligned slots and a closed position in which the hook is clamped between the slots. This design has disadvantages in that the movable member must be moved by hand prior to inserting a hook, and has no spring biasing to automatically lock the hooks in place or to keep a constant force on the lures once in position. The fishing lure holder of the present invention solves these problems in that it includes a hook-receiving groove adjacent the slots and uses spring biasing so that a hook may be pushed through the hook-receiving groove into the slots, with the apparatus automatically locking the hook in position.